Archive for August 8th, 2011

SFGate: The Standard & Poors’ rating agency decision to reduce the United States’ long term debt from AAA to AA+ was explained in a press release that specifically mentioned “the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues,” should, itself, make headlines like “Standard And Poors Blames U.S. Credit Rating Reduction On Republicans.”

But the fact is, some publications, most notable The Associated Press and Politico, are working (thus far) to cover up S&P’s finger-pointing at Republicans. Instead, they appear to be pointing their own fingers at President Obama – someone not mentioned in the Standard and Poor’s press release.

Take Jonathan Allen in Politico: Standard & Poor’s delivered an unambiguous message to investors Friday that has serious implications not only for the nation’s economy but also for President Barack Obama, the tea party and anyone else with skin in the 2012 elections: America’s political system is subprime.

That was how Allen started off his article. In it, there was zero mention of the two very damaging statements S&P used in its press release, and directly aimed at Republicans….

… Allen’s Politico article had a lot of Republican quotes, not many Democratic quotes, and in all failed to tell the truth of Standard & Poor’s message.

And then there’s the Associated Press’ article by Martin Crutsinger. It fails to include, or mention Standard & Poors’ GOP-directed press release quotes….

…. It’s purely irresponsible for The Associated Press and Politico to fail to accurately report the contents of the Standard and Poors press release. If The Associated Press and Politico want to damage President Obama, they should just come out and say so. Heck, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that his objective was to make President Obama “A one-term President”….

Andrew Sullivan: Well, in Andrew Sprung’s words, today’s brutal, unsparing attack on Obama from the dreamy left was “a rhetorical nuke dropped on ground zero in the liberal heartland.” I have no doubt that it will appeal to many who are depressed and demoralized by a presidency fighting both a global depression and a brutal, extremist right-wing opposition….

….. To take just one point, does Westen believe that, after TARP, a much bigger stimulus would have been able to get through Congress? And for what? These are not the 1930s, and in a much higher tech society, Depression era shovel-ready projects were not so easy to find. And the aversion to tax cuts seems strange. Aren’t they among the most effective way to stimulate demand quickly? And how much debt would we now have with such a stimulus? The trouble with telling stories is that fiction isn’t fact. And Obama faced a country that had become so leveraged in public and private that the 1930s option Westen wanted was a chimera. Is $14 trillion not enough debt?

…. What Westen seems to have wanted was the Democratic version of George W. Bush, contemptuous of his opponents, ruthless in his often unconstitutional determination to get his agenda through, divisive and polarizing. But Obama would not have won election on those grounds and did not have a mandate for that. He was elected as a moderate Democrat, prepared to engage any pragmatic solution to obvious problems, while not splitting an already polarized country even further.

That he has tried to do, against an opposition party that decided to double down on polarization, on politics as warfare, on politics as a game, and bereft of any ideas except taking us back to before the New Deal. What has to be defeated is not just their agenda, but their modus operandi. Only by patiently out-lasting and out-arguing them will Obama be able to do this. And it says a lot about the utopian left that they do not see the wisdom and responsibility of this strategy.